BREAKING: Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who led Communist Party after 1989 crackdown, has died at age 96, Chinese state TV reports.
Rumors that Jiang might be in declining health spread after he missed a ruling party congress in October at which Xi, China’s most powerful figure since at least the 1980s, broke with tradition and awarded himself a third five-year term as leader.
Jiang tried to hold onto influence by staying on as chairman of the Central Military Commission, which controls the party’s military wing, the 2 million-member People’s Liberation Army. He gave up that post in 2004 following complaints he might divide the government.He was said to be frustrated that Deng had picked Hu as the next leader, blocking Jiang from installing his own successor.
Like many technocratic officials, Jiang spent part of the ultra-radical 1966-76 Cultural Revolution as a farm laborer. His career rise resumed, and in 1983 he was named minister of the electronics industry, then a key but backward sector the government hoped to revive by inviting foreign investment. He supported Premier Zhu Rongji, the party’s No. 3 leader, who forced through painful changes that slashed as many as 40 million jobs from state industry in the late 1990s.
“Stability above all else,” Jiang ordered, in a phrase his successors have used to justify intensive social controls.
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